JIHAD INCORPORATED

Prometheus Books

Chapter One

The 9/11 attack ... was carried out by a tiny group of people, not enough to man a full platoon. Measured on a governmental scale, the resources behind it were trivial. The group itself was dispatched by an organization based in one of the poorest, most remote, and least industrialized countries on earth. This organization recruited a mixture of young fanatics and highly educated zealots who could not find suitable places in their home societies or were driven from them. -The 9/11 Commission Report

OVERVIEW

It has become accepted wisdom that the 9/11 attacks on America were carried out by a small group of selectively trained individuals operating on a marginal budget that somehow was capable of defeating the security systems of the world's greatest power. The shock at the vulnerability of America to this kind of assault has prompted significant and deserved reflection on a variety of security-related issues not the least of which include immigration policies, airline security, andintelligence sharing.

While all of these reviews are important, it is also illustrative to examine how it came to be that the nineteen terrorists acted as they did in carrying out their attacks. Their actions were not spontaneous or uncalculated. To the contrary, the terrorist attacks of September 11, 2001, were literally the products of lessons learned by al Qaeda over a previous decade of attacks and from a network of senior al Qaeda leaders within America itself.

Al Qaeda is much more than a scattered group of fanatical killers who appear on the world stage every few years through an act of violence and terror. It is an enterprise of terror defined by its meticulous planning, complex fund-raising, and ongoing recruitment through extremist interpretations of Islam. Only by understanding its past actions can we properly assess its current and future intentions. This is the place to start.

THE PRE-9/11 ATTACKS: PLANNING, EXECUTION, AND LEARNING

Al Qaeda began to plan attacks against American targets as early as 1992, when the group's Shura Council issued a fatwa calling for a holy war against the Western "occupation" of Islamic lands. Initially, as al Qaeda was still a small group in its developing phase, most of the attacks were carried out by individuals and groups whose affiliations with bin Laden's organization were mostly ideological. While they cannot be properly characterized as al Qaeda operatives, these operations played a very significant role in the formation of today's al Qaeda. It was thanks to the alliances formed and cultivated in the 1990s and to the skills it acquired through this symbiosis that al Qaeda became increasingly capable of carrying out terrorist attacks throughout the world. Al Qaeda's leadership patiently learned from the successes and the mistakes of its own operations as well as those of its affiliates', improving in efficiency and sophistication with time. This learning experience culminated in the attacks of 9/11, which represented the peak of its operational abilities.

This chapter looks at the Islamist terrorist attacks prior to 9/11, both planned and executed, in chronological order. The 1993 World Trade Center bombing is explored at greatest length, because the details of this (partially) successful operation have provided a template for terrorists seeking to operate inside the United States.

World Trade Center 1993

On February 26, 1993, a few minutes after noon, an explosive device went off beneath the two towers of New York City's World Trade Center. Six people died as a result of the explosion, while more than one thousand had to be treated for injuries. Given the power of the device, authorities were relieved that the number of victims was so relatively small, and an FBI agent subsequently described it as a "miracle." In fact, the structural damage caused by the bomb, which had been placed in a van parked in the underground garage, was significant. The explosion tore a seven-story gash through the structure and almost toppled the Vista Hotel, located on top of the garage where the bomb was detonated. The evacuation of the thousands of panicked office workers was made more difficult by the fact that firefighters had to cut off electric power, because the two million gallons of water pouring from broken pipes to the lower levels of the parking garage could dangerously come in contact with damaged electric systems and cause electrocution.

In the hours following the attack, a claim of responsibility was left on the New York Daily News tip line. The message claimed that the "Liberation Army" was responsible for the blast and announced that a list of demands would be sent by mail. A letter containing an ominous message was later received by the New York Times:

We are, the fifth battalion in the Liberation Army, declare our responsibility for the explosion on the mentioned building. This action was done in response for the American political, economical, and military support to Israel the state of terrorism and to the rest of the dictator countries in the region.

Our Demands Are:

1. Stop all military, economical, and political aid to Israel.

2. All diplomatic relations with Israel must stop.

3. Not to interfere with any of the Middle East countries interior affairs.

If our demands are not met, all of our functional groups in the army will continue to execute our missions against the military and civilian targets in and out of the United States. For your own information, our army has more than hundred and fifty suicidal soldiers ready to go ahead. The terrorism that Israel practices (Which is supported by America) must be faced with a similar one. The dictatorship and terrorism (also supported by America) that some countries are practicing against their own people must also be faced with terrorism.

The American people must know that their civilians who got killed are not better than those who are getting killed by the American weapons and support.

The American people are responsible for the actions of their government and they must question all for the crimes that their government is committing against other people. Or they-Americans-will be the targets of our operations that could diminish them.

The hunt for the perpetrators began immediately after the attacks. Investigators obtained an important lead while combing through the debris in the garage of the World Trade Center. In this debris, they managed to find the vehicle identification number (VIN) of the van in which the bomb had been placed. Authorities immediately linked the Ford Econoline cargo van to a Ryder rental agency in New Jersey. Three days before the attack the van had been rented by a New Jersey man, Mohammed Salameh, who had reported it stolen in Jersey City the day before the bombing. On March 4, Salameh walked into the Ryder agency, with the intention of reclaiming the $400 deposit fee he had paid for the van. This clumsy move led the FBI to make its first arrest in the case and to uncover a treasure trove of information.

Investigators followed new leads connected to Salameh's arrest and conducted searches in various locations throughout the Greater New York area. As more information began to surface, it had become clear that the bombing had been carried out by a group of foreign-based Islamic fundamentalists with the help of local sympathizers. Although authorities were able to arrest most of the local cohorts, the masterminds of the plot had managed to escape. Mahmoud Abouhalima, one of the bomb makers involved in the attack, had left the country before Salameh's arrest, making his way to Sudan. He was arrested after a few weeks in Egypt and flown back to the United States. More important, Ramzi Yousef, the mastermind of the attack, had left the country a few hours after the bombing, flying from New York's John F. Kennedy International Airport to Pakistan. He would be arrested in Islamabad by local intelligence agencies working in cooperation with the United States only two years later.

The immigration history of Ramzi Yousef represents a quintessential case study in the failures of the US immigration system and its consequences on the country's security. Yousef, a Pakistani who grew up in Kuwait, flew to the United States in September 1992 along with Ahmad Ajaj, a Palestinian from the West Bank. Upon landing at JFK airport, Ajaj was detained by immigration authorities, as he presented a blatantly counterfeit Swedish passport. Inspecting Ajaj's luggage, immigration officers discovered that he was carrying bomb-making manuals and decided to hold him in Immigration and Naturalization Service (INS) detention until shortly after the World Trade Center bombing. Yousef, who claimed to be Iraqi, immediately asked for political asylum and was also briefly detained. Yet, since the INS's holding cells were overcrowded, Yousef was released pending an asylum hearing. As soon as he was released, Yousef made contact with the New York-based militants who helped him execute his plan. He also continued to communicate with Ajaj, who managed to participate in the planning while in detention. A few days after his release by the INS, Ajaj was rearrested, this time for his role in the World Trade Center attack.

More details about the plot have emerged since the day of the attacks. Abdul Rahman Yasin, a native of Bloomington, Indiana, and one of the alleged bomb makers, was arrested in Jersey City shortly after the attacks. Yasin cooperated with investigators, providing the FBI with key names and addresses. As a result, Yasin was curiously released. He left the United States, ending up in Iraq, where he lived as a free man until 1994, when he was arrested by Iraqi police. He was released by Saddam Hussein's regime on the eve of the 2003 Iraqi war, as part of an amnesty program the Iraqi dictator attempted to implement to garner support for his regime. In 2002, while still incarcerated in Iraq, Yasin was interviewed by CBS News's Lesley Stahl, and revealed new details about the 1993 attacks. According to Yasin, Ramzi Yousef's original goal was to detonate several explosive devices in various Jewish neighborhoods in Brooklyn. Yousef ultimately changed targets to a single larger explosion at the World Trade Center, since "the majority of people who work in the World Trade Center are Jews."

Even though they had managed to kill six people, cause damages totaling millions of dollars, and carry out the first terrorist attack by an Islamist group on American soil, the group did not consider the operation a success. Proof of their dissatisfaction comes from a file found on a computer disk belonging to another conspirator, Nidal Ayyad, a chemical company employee who had purchased most of the chemicals used to fabricate the bomb. While expressing disappointment that the explosion had failed to cause the substantial damage sought, the letter warned that the World Trade Center would continue to be a target, and that the calculations for future attacks should be more precise. Both the disappointment for the failed destruction of the buildings and the desire to try a second time were expressed also by the plan's mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, who told interrogators that he had intended to topple one building and have it crash into the other, hoping to kill 250,000 people.

In March 1994, relying on more than one thousand exhibits and the testimony of more than two hundred witnesses, federal prosecutors obtained the conviction of Salameh, Ajaj, Abouhalima, and Ayyad. All the accused were convicted and sentenced to 240 years in prison each, but in 1999 these sentences were reduced to 116 years for Salameh, 114 years for Ajaj, 108 years for Abouhalima, and 117 years for Ayyad. In 1995, Eyad Ismoil, the man who physically drove the truck into the garage of the World Trade Center, was arrested in Jordan. Three years later he received a 240-year sentence.

The Landmarks Plot

In a related development, later in 1993, a total of ten conspirators, including the World Trade Center defendants, were arrested for their involvement in the New York landmarks plot. This involved an elaborate scheme to simultaneously bomb the Holland and Lincoln tunnels, the United Nations building, and FBI headquarters in New York City in the early summer of 1993.

The spiritual leader of the plan was Sheikh Omar Abdel Rahman, a blind, extremist cleric who had moved to the United States from Egypt in 1990. Although in 1998 the FBI dubbed the plot as one of "loosely affiliated groups of like-minded extremists," today the "Blind Sheikh" is considered a key figure in the development of the Egyptian Islamic Jihad in the United States, helping to infuse the radicals he preached to in New York and New Jersey with spiritual and political resolve. Interestingly, one of the Blind Sheikh's character witnesses at trial was a well-known imam from south Florida, the Galshair Muhammad el-Shukrijumah, whose son, Adnan el-Shukrijumah, is a top al Qaeda operative wanted by the FBI.

In 2004, an FBI special agent described the various participants in the landmarks case:

[I]n 1993, a plot to bomb the landmarks, tunnels and the FBI building was carried out by a group of conspirators from different jihadist groups including the Egyptian Islamic Jihad, the Sudanese National Islamic Front, Al Fuqra and Hamas. The collaboration of these conspirators from seemingly independent radical Islamic groups represented a hitherto unknown collaboration between jihadist groups, a pattern of collaboration that has been observed since then by Al Qaeda in using the personnel of other groups to collect intelligence in the field.

The conspirators were convicted in October 1995.

The so-called Liberation Army and the landmarks bombing group would not necessarily have identified themselves as members of al Qaeda. Notwithstanding this, the linkages to bin Laden's newly formed group are obvious. The conspiracy's mastermind, Ramzi Yousef, and his accomplice Ahmad Ajaj had trained and studied bomb making in Afghan camps committed to furthering "global jihad." In addition, Yousef's uncle Khalid Sheikh Mohammed ("KSM," discussed in detail in chapter 3), who had first met bin Laden in 1989 while bin Laden was constructing his al Qaeda organization, sent Yousef money to help execute the plot.

Ramzi Yousef's chilling expression of how he had intended to cause the towers to topple foreshadowed al Qaeda's next involvement with New York City. The lesson learned from his nephew's failure was not lost on KSM, who would become the mastermind of the 9/11 attacks that ultimately toppled the Twin Towers eight years later.

The "Bojinka" Plot

The next al Qaeda operation to serve as a lesson for 9/11 unraveled in an almost accidental way and, once again, involved Ramzi Yousef. On January 6, 1995, a Manila police station received a late-night call regarding a suspected minor explosion and fire in an apartment building. The first officers dispatched were told that it was an accident caused by people playing with fireworks. The apartment building, the Dona Josefa, was close to an intended site of a pending papal tour, which led the local police commander to probe further.

(Continues...)

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Excerpted from JIHAD INCORPORATED by STEVEN EMERSON Copyright © 2006 by Steven Emerson and the Investigative Project on Terrorism. Excerpted by permission.
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